1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to an arrangement in a feed mechanism for feeding particulate material, such as coal, to a crusher wherein the feed mechanism has an access door which may be manually or automatically opened in response to backup of material in the crusher inlet chute to shut down the feed mechanism and to provide access for clearing clogged oversized material from the crusher inlet chute.
2. Background
In the art of coal crushing and similar types of bulk material processing systems, the crusher apparatus is typically supplied with material to be processed from a storage hopper by way of a feed mechanism which conveys the material to an inlet or feed chute to the crusher apparatus. In many instances, the size of the pieces or chunks of material to be crushed and the feed rate tend to overfeed the crusher resulting in a clogged condition which then necessitates shut-down of the crusher and the feed mechanism, expending considerable effort to unblock the crusher inlet chute and reduce the particle size so that the crusher may be restarted. Prior art arrangements of crusher apparatus have been difficult to gain access to in order to remove material from a clogged inlet chute and this lack of suitable access also sometimes requires personnel to be exposed to hazardous working conditions.
Moreover, the clogging of the primary crusher feed, of course, interrupts crusher operation which, in high volume coal or rock production, is generally intolerable. For example, the primary crushers in a large open-pit mine operating in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming reduce coal particles to approximately seven inches maximum dimension or less. These crushers are in a production or process stream which delivers coal to unit trains at a significant rate. If a crusher becomes plugged or inoperable, under prior art arrangements, up to twelve hours of coal production may be lost from such a crusher thereby reducing mine output significantly. Accordingly, correction of a problem associated with prior arrangements of coal crushing apparatus is important. The present invention overcomes deficiencies with the prior art arrangement as will be further understood upon reading the description which follows.